Famous People - Top Influential People  -  Famous People that Shaped the World
Isaac Newton - Jesus Christ - Johann Gutenberg  
Christopher Columbus -  Albert Einstein

Before and After Celebrity Photos 

Advancement of Learning 1605 by Francis Bacon
"We see, then how far the monuments of wit and learning are more durable than the monuments of power or of the hands. for have not the verses of Homer continued 25 hundred years or more without the loss of the a syllable or letter; during which time infinite palaces, temples, castles, cities have bee decayed and demolished?"

ISAAC NEWTON 1642 - 1727  Newton an influential scientist was born in England on Christmas day and died the same year as Galileo. Educated at Cambridge University where he absorbed science and mathematics. During his mid twenties he laid the foundation for the scientific theories that subsequently revolutionized the world.

Newton's most important discoveries were in the filed of mechanics, the science of how material object move. Galileo had discovered the first law of motion which describes the motion of object if ther are not subject to any exterior forces. In practice of course all objects are subject to any exterior forces, and more importantly the question in mechanics is how objects move under such circumstances. This problem was solved by Newton in his famous second law of motion which may rightly be considered the most fundamental law of classic physics. The second law is described by the equation (F=ma) states that the acceleration of an object (the rate at which its velocity changes) is equal to the net force on the object divided by the object's mass. Newton added fir famous third law of motion (which states that each action there is an equal and opposite reaction) 

Newton's laws can be and have been applied to an extremely broad range of scientific and engineering problems. During his lifetime, the most dramatic application of his laws was made in the field of astronomy.  He showed how these laws could be used to predict precisely the motions of the planets around the sun.  Newton is often considered the greatest of all astronomers. Newton died in 1727 and was buried in Westminster Abbey the first scientist to be accorded that honor.

JESUS CHRIST  6BC - 30BC  The impact of Jesus on human history is so obvious and enormous. Few people would question of his influence

Jesus formulated the basic ethical ideas of Christianity,  its  spiritual outlook and main laws concerning human conduct. Christian theology however was shaped principally by the world of St Paul. Jesus presented a spiritual message, St Paul added to that the worship of Christ.

The story of Jesus' life as it is related in the New Testament is familiar to most readers and will not be repeated here.  However, a few points are worth noting. In the first place, most of the information that we have about Jesus is uncertain. We are not even sure what his original name was. Most probably it was the common Jewish name Yehoshua (Joshua in English) Also we are not certain of the year of his birth or the year of his death. And Jesus himself left no writing behind and virtually all our information concerning his life comes from the accounts in the New Testament. Unfortunately the Gospels contradict each other on various points. For example Matthew and Luke give complete different versions of Jesus' last words. 

Most importantly Jesus has an extraordinarily impressive personality which made a deep and lasting impression on the people who met him. He was charismatic in the deepest and fullest  sense of the word. He had virtually no influence on the political developments during his own lifetime but since his death Jesus has had an enormous indirect influence on long-term political developments. Jesus made his influence felt entirely as an ethical and spiritual leader. 

One of Jesus' central precepts was the Golden Rule. Today the Golden Rule is accepted by most people, Christians and non-Christians alike. However, Jesus was not the originator of this universally accepted principle. In fact, the Golden Rule was an accepted precept of Judaism long before Jesus was born. Rabbi Hillel the leading Rabbi of the first century explicitly enunciated the Golden Rule and pronounced it the foremost principle of Judaism. In fact the philosophy behind the Golden Rule is accepted by almost every major religion Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you and persecute you

JOHANN GUTENBERG 1400 -1468 Guttenberg is often called the inventor of printing. What he actually did was to develop the method of utilizing movable type and the printing press in such a way that a large variety of written material could be printed with speed and accuracy. 

Gutenberg's overall contribution was far greater that any of his individual improvements of the printing method because he combined all the elements of printing into an effective system of production. What made for Gutenberg's invention most effective was that now books could be mass produced. 

Gutenberg's impact on world history can be gained by comparing the subsequent development of China and Europe. In his time the two regions were about equally advanced technologically, but after Gutenberg's invention of modern printing Europe progressed very rapidly. His best known work the called the Gutenberg Bible was printed at Mainz in 1454

CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS 1451- 1506  Columbus by attempting to find w westward route from Europe to the Orient, inadvertently discovered the Americans and thereby had a great influence on world history than he could have possibly anticipated. 

His discovery which inaugurated the age of exploration and colonization in the New World was on of the critical turning points in history. It opened to the people of Europe two new continents for the settlement of their expanding populations and provided a source of mineral wealth and raw materials that altered the economy of Europe.

His discovery led to the destruction of the civilization of the American Indians. In the long run it also led to the formation of a new ser of nations in the western hemisphere, vastly different from the Indian nation which had once inhabited the region and greatly effecting the nation of the Old World. Within a few years of his return expeditions to the New World were made the and the colonization of the re territories began in earnest.

Although Columbus is not famous for showing that the earth was round, he is famous for discovering the New World which fifteenth-century Europe had had any knowledge of existence of the American continents

ALBERT EINSTEIN 1879 -1955   Einstein the greatest scientist of the 20th century and one of the supreme intellects of all time. Best known for his theory of relativity E=Mc2

The are actually two theories involved, the special theory of relativity formulated in 1905 and the general theory of relativity, formulated in 1915, the latter better known as Einstein's law of gravity. Einstein's theory is a precise mathematical statement of the way in which scientific measurements are relative. It is obvious that the subjective perceptions of time and space depends on the observer. Einstein's theory revolutionized scientific thought by denying the existence of any absolute time. The following example may illustrate just how radically his theory revised our ideas of time and space. 

Image a spaceship X moving away from earth at a speed of 100,00 kilometers per second. The speed is measured on both the spaceship and on earth and their measurement agree. Meanwhile another spaceship Y is moving in exactly the same direction as spaceship X but at a much greater speed of 180,00 kilometers per second. Now both spaceship are moving is the same direction but spaceship Y is moving at a great speed of 80,000 kilometers faster. However, the measurement predict that distance between both spaceships is in fact 100,000 kilometers per second. Not trick involved. For according to Einstein the foregoing result is a consequence only of the basics nature of time and space.

One of the conclusion of Einstein's theory of relativity is that matter and energy are in a certain sense equivalent and the relation between them is a given formula E-Mc2 is which E represents energy, M equals mass and c represents the speed of light. Now since c which is equal to 186,000 miles per second in a very large number , C2 (that is c times c) is a simply enormous number. So it follows that even the partial conversion of a small amount of matter will release tremendous quantities of energy. Albert Einstein Biography